The Investigation (35 page)

Choi began to get himself sent to solitary and brought in other prisoners. The solitary cells were always at capacity as he and his gang began to dig. When they only had fifteen metres left,
they encountered a problem: Sugiyama. The guard had been watching Choi and had sniffed out the plot. Sugiyama reported the incident to Hasegawa, his eyes emitting righteous fire.

‘Sugiyama!’ Hasegawa soothed. ‘I know what’s going on. Thank you for your efforts, but this is not something to get worked up about. There’s a bigger plan in place.
So forget you know anything about this.’

Sugiyama didn’t understand. All he could think about was stopping this prisoner from escaping. He brought Choi to the interrogation room and beat him to a pulp. If Choi filled up the
tunnel, Sugiyama would forget it ever happened. That was the best Sugiyama could do to obey Hasegawa’s order and still stop Choi from escaping. Choi couldn’t flout Sugiyama, who now
checked on the tunnel daily. Hasegawa became frustrated; Choi was unable to do anything.

That was when Sugiyama died.

‘Who killed Sugiyama?’ I asked, voice trembling.

‘As you know, it was Choi. But it doesn’t matter who actually committed the deed. Sugiyama’s death created a way out for the stalled plan.’

I shook my head. ‘You used a guard’s death to further your plan?’

‘That’s how important it was. A dead man is a dead man. If he knew his death would contribute to the victory of the Empire, Sugiyama would have been happy, too.’

‘How could that possibly happen?’

‘It was too late to continue digging the tunnel. With the war effort faltering, there was no time to hesitate. So we changed our plan. Choi’s execution would be the best way for him
to get out of prison. And to do that, Choi had to be Sugiyama’s murderer.’ Hasegawa grinned. His self-importance was nauseating me.

My chin trembled with rage and resentment. ‘So you assigned me to the murder investigation so that I would accuse Choi? Was it also part of the plan to promote me for solving
it?’

Hasegawa looked bashful for a moment. ‘I’m sorry about that. Really, I am. But you were the perfect person to be assigned that task. You are both adequately naive and well-meaning. I
couldn’t tell you what was going on. Anyway, you did your best in the situation. You found the murderer and contributed greatly to the plan.’

That was why Choi had confessed so readily when I interrogated him. I was merely a puppet. I had worked so hard for nothing; the countless sleepless nights, the time I spent racked with guilt
– all was meaningless. I was the only one who’d been kept in the dark.

‘As I said, you did a good job,’ Hasegawa said gently. ‘Your job was to be completely fooled.’

‘You made me a fool and a puppet!’ I shouted.

‘Maybe you’re right. But sometimes a puppet is necessary. We were able to get Choi out and recover the imperial gold.’

‘But your plan failed! The three guards protecting Choi died. And there’s no gold.’

‘No, no. I checked all the records. He did attack the supply unit and stole immense amounts of gold. I’ll have to dispatch special service guards to capture him. We have to find that
gold!’ Hasegawa’s face was flushed.

‘Forget it, sir. You were tricked. You know why? You weren’t trying to get the military chest back, you were coveting the gold for yourself. If you were going to recover the military
chest, you would have reported it to the Ministry or the Special Higher Police. But you plotted everything in secret. If it hadn’t been for your greed, you would have seen through
Choi’s trick.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Choi made his first ridiculous escape attempt so that he would be personally interrogated by you. He made up a rumour about the secret gold and then attempted to escape. He knew he
wouldn’t succeed. When he was sent to solitary instead of being shot, he was certain that you believed the rumour. He was the only person who knew where the mythical treasure was, so he was
certain that you wouldn’t kill him. After that, he attempted many more escapes. He demonstrated that he would risk death to escape, proving that there was something he had to do on the
outside. He slowly got you to believe him.’

‘That’s not possible.’

‘You might think you would never be tricked, but you were begging to be fooled. You wanted to believe him. You believed Choi’s story because of your greed.’

‘Greed?’ Hasegawa glared at me and slammed his baton on his desk. ‘Is it greed to show my loyalty to the Empire, to return stolen gold to the nation?’

I froze in place. I’d said too much. I had to choose: I would be safe if I took the warden’s secret to my grave; time would pass uneventfully, and I would survive if I buried all of
those things deep within me. ‘Sir, was it your plan all along to kill Sugiyama? Did you need a victim to make Choi a murderer?’

Hasegawa shook his head. ‘Sugiyama wasn’t part of the plan. He just got in the way. Nothing would have happened to him if he hadn’t discovered the tunnel, or if he’d
listened to my advice. But he was persistent, and Choi couldn’t shake him off. And it’s not only that. Sugiyama committed treason. He purposefully wounded certain prisoners so that they
wouldn’t be chosen for medical treatment. Like Hiranuma. After Sugiyama died, we made sure Hiranuma was selected for medical treatment.’

It was just as I’d suspected. I now truly began to understand why Midori believed Sugiyama wasn’t evil. ‘Is that why you killed Sugiyama?’

He shook his head. ‘I did use Sugiyama’s death, but I didn’t kill him. He disobeyed orders and he was a traitor, but he was still a war hero. He was valuable to me.’

‘Then who?’

His burning gaze seared through my skill as the amorphous pieces of truth began to find their places at last.

I burst out of the warden’s office, screaming.

I ran into Director Morioka’s office. He was getting off the phone. ‘Yuichi,’ he greeted me with his ever-pleasant demeanour. ‘The warden just called.
He said you had a question for me.’ His voice was silky.

I glared at him, my eyes bloodshot. ‘I need your cooperation in the investigation of Sugiyama Dozan’s murder.’

‘Are you still on that case? Wasn’t the perpetrator caught and the investigation concluded? Don’t you have better things to do?’ Morioka looked at me sympathetically.

I spat out my rising rage. ‘The criminal was caught, but the incident wasn’t concluded. Because Choi wasn’t the murderer. Someone else killed Sugiyama.’

‘Who killed him?’

I took in a deep breath. ‘He’s in the infirmary.’

Morioka’s voice turned syrupy, trying to disarm me. ‘How did you end up believing such nonsense, Yuichi?’

I had to goad him into anger. ‘Sugiyama’s lips were sewn with surgical thread. Seeing that the killer used a surgical needle and thread, it’s clear that the son-of-a-bitch was
a doctor. But he was sloppy.’

‘And you have proof?’

‘I saw the corpse. The stitches were crooked. He was probably shaking so violently, so frightened, that he ran off without even making a knot.’ I was lying through my teeth: the
sutures were precise and immaculate. But I was trying my best to confuse him.

The corners of his eyes trembled slightly. He smiled. ‘Don’t go running your mouth off when you don’t know anything. Why would a Kyushu Imperial University doctor kill a
trifling guard?’ He looked at me with a benevolent expression, but I could detect an edge to his warm smile.

I swallowed hard. ‘Sugiyama knew what was going on in the infirmary. He stood up to those murderers. He beat certain prisoners so they wouldn’t be included in the experiments. His
only fault was that he had a heart.’

Morioka gave me a pitying smile and pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘You’re partly right, but mostly wrong. He was a traitor who needed to be eliminated. His lips had to be
sealed.’

‘A traitor?’

‘As a guard, Sugiyama had pledged to give his life to the Empire. But he forgot who he was. I talked to him several times, but he wouldn’t listen. He was once a great soldier for the
Empire, but he became a turncoat. Let me assure you, he was a problem that needed to be removed.’

I didn’t know what to do.

He continued gently, ‘Yuichi, I do hope Sugiyama didn’t infect you. You’re too young and good to be marred with the ideology of treason.’

‘The problem isn’t Sugiyama, it’s the rest of us!’ I cried.

‘I know it’s hard for you to accept it, what with your youth. But our nation is at war! As a soldier, you must be cognizant of that!’

‘I’m not the one who started this war! Those who started this war killed thousands of people, and they did this just to grab more power. They’ll pay for it. They have to pay
for it!’ I knew I was going too far, but I couldn’t stop now.

Morioka kept his expression gentle. ‘You’re a smart young man who has a brilliant future ahead of you. You’re not foolish and brutish like Sugiyama. I believe in
you.’

I wasn’t brave enough to risk death. I wanted to live. As

Choi told me to, as Dong-ju requested, I wanted to survive.

Watching me grappling with this dilemma, Morioka’s face bloomed into a smile. ‘Sugiyama’s dead. That’s an irreversible fact. We must make sure his death wasn’t for
naught. We’ll pray for him to go to a better place. Although he was a terrible man, his death could still be valuable to us.’

I felt violently sick. I covered my mouth and ran towards the wall. He followed me and rubbed my back as I heaved.

‘See? You act tough, but you’re actually quite gentle. This is life – disgusting. But you’ll find your way. I’m sure you’ll forget everything you heard in
this office today, right?’

I ran out. I couldn’t do anything to stop this. I was overwhelmed by this immense conspiracy. I wanted to tell someone, but I didn’t have anyone to tell. Even if I did, nobody would
believe me. Nobody, I was sure, could do anything about any of it.

In July, damp ocean air drifted over the prison walls. Bluish-black mould bloomed on the walls of the censor’s office. Air raids continued. The bomb shelter was like the
inside of a dark grave. I stared at the darkness. I thought of faces – those of the dead and those of the living. I was one of the survivors, but that made me ashamed.

By August, high humidity permeated the prison. The bluish mould in the censor’s office had spread to the pillars. The voices on the radio were becoming more heated and indignant, as the
air raids grew ever more intense, death tolls climbed, and cities became mass graves. And yet I lived on. That in itself made me feel as though I’d committed a crime. I closed my eyes,
submitted to easy lies and lived with evil. The truth could only live inside me. The war kept dragging on.

On 7 and 9 August, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. Everything burned and vanished. The war ended on 15 August. When I heard the news, I counted on my fingers to work out the number of days
I’d spent without Dong-ju – just one day shy of six months. He’d died only six months before the independence of his country. I was too exhausted to be glad. And that was how I
fled from that filthy era.

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